Off I Go
by Get Real Or Die
Summary: If you had to choose between a place where you were respected but ultimately alone or a place where all you had was decades of perspective and a Mulligan, what would you do? Sometimes the things we loose we can't get back; not how we want them at least.
1. Prologue

AN: I've been watching SNL and looking at excerpts from the tell-all book. The idea of Rachel as Lorne Micheal's for a new generation wouldn't leave me alone.  
BTW: SNL is so screwed when he dies. It'll probably continue but the man is the foundation the house that is SNL is built on.

Prologue

The Life Of A Modern Day Funny Girl: A Retrospect of The Career and Life of Rachel Barbara Berry

Published: June 18, 2057 Efron/Hudgens Publishing

Edited by: Tori Feletro and Jim Franklin

The cover picture is of Rachel at around the age of 32 sitting in a brightly lit kitchen as she salutes the camera. As was the norm for her at the time, the small smile on her face never reaches her eyes. Even draped in the long inviting spring-colored dress, a chilliness, a weariness was pasted on her face just the same. The photo was credited in small print to Matthew Rutherford, staff photographer for Rolling Stone magazine.

Foreward by Noah Eli Puckerman

I'm sitting here in the foyer of my home, having just returned from the funeral of the only woman I've ever truly loved romantically.

There. I finally said it or typed it as the case may be. Until I typed those words, that was the longest and one of the only secrets I had kept from Rachel during the time we've known each other. Saying it would have taken away from what we had with one another and even as I sit here in one of only two suits I own filled with regrets and what-if's, I still in my heart of hearts believe that. Loving her had never been easy and as a man, I had never been one to do things in secret or shame ever since a convoluted incident I barely survived with sanity intact back in high school. Though we'd been in close contact with each other since we were infants,  
I never got to truly know her until I joined the glee club at my alma matar, McKinley High School.

Though you will most likely read remembrances from other original members of the club that might differ from my point of view, one thing I think we can all agree on was that from the moment she introduced herself to you, you couldn't be indifferent towards Rachel Berry. As a sophomore, Rachel swept into my life like a force of nature.I had joined Glee Club with ulterior motives and quite suddenly, I find myself in the orbit of a bossy, loud-mouthed, arrogant midget. And while I still think she could still be all of those things on occasion long after we've left high school, the thing that I remember most about Rachel at that time was her drive to succeed.

No one pushes themselves that hard without something driving them and God rest their souls, but I think the good Mr. Berry's were her driving force. As much as she had wanted to be famous with all of the things that that entails, I believe she always felt in her heart of hearts that she had to make good for her fathers. Rachel's planning and conception was a radical thing for straight people to do or consider back in 1994 let alone for 2 gay men of some prominence to attempt such an undertaking. From before the day she was born, Rachel's house received calls and letters proclaiming that she was unnatural and an abomination before God himself. It didn't matter that Jason and Hiram Berry had painstakingly picked Shelby Corcoran from a list of willing donors or that they loved her as much as any men could love a child.

People in Lima would see her continual existence as something foul until the day she left that town.  
When I say that Rachel changed my life when we first became teammates in our sophomore year of high school, I do not mean to misconstrue or misrepresent our relationship.

Until I joined Glee (and quite frankly, for some time after) I had been nothing but a mean-spirited pissant to Rachel. So much so, that she would have been in the right to put me out of her sight and out of her mind unless we had to collaborate together. But for the next three years I got to know her as more and more time went by. I do not know if there is a an afterlife but if there is, I think Rach is smiling at me when I type this: til' this day, I think she is one of the most fascinating people with many facets that I've ever met.

That being said, I don't think I ever should've met her.

When Rachel graduated from Cal-Arts, she did so weary, yet energized and ready to break into a world that had no room for her kind. Broadway is dead as I type this and I think it was dying when Rachel had set out determined to conquer the Great White Way. In a perfect word, Rachel was born in 1955 or 1957 and came to fame in the 70's as a protege/double-act to Barbara Streisand. She made her mark on the world of theater and the world of film through the medium of dance and song. In the end, she died after having lived a long life and satisfying career filled with the adoration of critics, peers and fans alike and the 200's were after her time.  
Instead she had been born into a world that was not kind to her ambition. Many people struggle with their goals but Rachel struggled harder than she should have had to.

For those of you in the theatrical and musical industries that are reading this, I mean no disrespect. I understand that all of you have come far in your chosen occupations but Rachel's work ethic cannot be denied. The woman didn't just believe in the saying 'the show must go on'; I can honestly say with no pomp and circumstance that she gave new meaning to the saying. Regardless of whether it was as a dancer, a singer, a director, or as a dramatic or comedic actress, Rachel put all of herself into her projects until the day she died. I've met grown men who whined and wept when asked to endure even half of the schedule Rachel kept at times during her heyday and she did it with a brisk professionalism that still fills me with awe to this day.

The day I truly got to know Rachel was a bittersweet day for the both of us. I had realised that the lack of effort I employed for the first two years of my high school career would mean that I would either have to reapply or go to a shitty vocational college of some sort. I had done what I did in all the times I felt like I needed somewhere to go ever since the day I had finally gotten a soul;the old choir room in McKinley High. McKinley High is still standing but the main building that our choir room stood in has long since been demolished after it was burned to the ground back in 2021. But I can still see it in my mind and I can still see Rachel within it. She had been crying and I don't think I can remember her ever having shown true devastation as long as I've known her.

Oh sure, I had been there for the merry go round that had been the Finn and Rachel show a few times and she had been geuinely hurt and upset at all of the times those romantic entanglements had ended badly. And don't even get me started on the ending to what was the first of many encounters I had to witness regarding St. James and his cavalier attitude towards Rachel's feelings. But as much as it hurt her to keep losing the men she wanted, I had never seen her this torn or deparate. She had gotten her wish; one of the final steps on her ascension to Broadway royalty. She had been accepted to the Julliard School of Performing Arts.

She just needed a way to pay for it.

If I had known what it truly meant for her to have that dangled in front of her with no way of reaching it, I think that I would have tried to knock over another ATM, probation officer be damned. But I didn't know at the time, so I would just gape along with the rest of the team when we all showed our hands and said where we'd be scattering to next year and Rachel said California instead of the expected New York City, New York. She loved...no, loves that town. As a child she had dreamt of it with a ferverishness and intensity that still frightens me considering some of the in-depth conversations we had about the situation and as an adult, the city was a base of power from which she operated and sat on a throne made of the bits and pieces she's been casting from herself for as long as I've known her.

Do I know what would have happened if Rachel had headed to Julliard like she had felt she had been destined to do? No, but I do wonder sometimes. There is no doubt in my mind that she would have eventually ran into Jesse St. James some day, destined as they were to run in the same circles but I think she would've been prepared for the man Jesse had become in the years since they had known each other. I do not like to speak ill of the dead as a general rule but past actions have shown the utter enmity and contempt I hold for St. James to this day. If holding my tongue about my feelings for Rachel is the hardest thing I've ever had to do concerning my spirit, than staying my hand on the night of their engagement dinner has to be the second hardest concerning my body and mind.

I bring up St. James because the woman you know and love that you've seen in the media for the past 50 years give or take a few, is the creation that his death inspired. I awoke on the morning of April 22, 2022 with a terrible hangover and a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach even as I tried to silence the ringing in my ears that was entirely thanks to my Jagermeister induced hangover. I thought the feeling was because in about 5 hours I would have to stand next to someone I adored and admired and watch them marry a man that I still consider one of the smuggest, insufferable bastards I've ever had the displeasure of knowing. Besides the call I received informing of her death, the phone call telling me that Rachel had tried to commit suicide is the worst call I have ever received.

I don't like to think alot about that day but to understand Rachel Berry (the person; not the legend who reviatalized a director's role in film or the woman who until the day she died believed in the power of the 'elliptical workout plan' that so many young women follow to this day) you have to understand that, proportionally speaking, as bad as the morning of April 22 should have been for me, it should have been equally happy for her. As much as we argued and fought about his presence in her life, Rachel had truly loved Jesse St. James and to be woken from a sound unconsciousness and be told that not only will you not be getting married today, but that your fiancee and your unborn child (a child you hadn't been aware you were carrying) was dead and that you'd never walk again to boot is a hard thing to hear.

Though it had hurt my career and cost me business at the time, I still do not apologize for the way I destroyed Hank Sederto's financial and family life. A first year intern, in his eagerness to spread around misery and gossip, had almost cost me the best friend I've ever had by plying her with incorrect and deliberately misleading information. While we all know at this very late date, that the information about St. James and their unborn child was true, the hack should have had enough medical knowledge to know that until the swelling from the surgery had gone down, the status of her left knee and right shin was inconclusive. Regardless, you don't tell a woman such things all at once and you especially don't tell them to someone like Rachel and expect her to take it well.

That day was a long time ago but I think that was the day of the birth of the only Rachel Berry most of you have ever had the pleasure of working with. From previous talks I've had with her, I had known that Rachel was firmly against suicide and for her to even contemplate such a thing at the height of her stage and singing career said alot more to me about Rachel's relationship with St. James than two rings he put on her fingers ever could have. The Rachel that I knew before that day was a 27 year old woman who was essentially the same girl I knew in high school just wiser, and without a doubt, a better actress. The person she became that day was not someone I particularly cared for but she was what I had left.

After the blitz that the media had laid upon her, Rachel had become more secretive and paranoid about her life in and out of the tabloids. Few people would learn of her inability to continue with the Broadway production of Funny Girl, thanks to her injuries, until a composed and ruefully subdued Rachel would announce it in her opening monologue on her surprise appearance on SNL. Speaking of her July appearance on the show that year, I know many people still consider it in bad taste that she was as funny and as on as she was in those sketches but I like to think of it as her own personal tribute to Jesse. Their appearance on SNL as host and musical guests respectively is still known to the people that knew the two of them best at the time as the day when the two of them finally became a united front against the world and stopped destroying each other from the inside out, as the press had seemed so eager for them to do at the time. And even though it had gotten them branded as some of the worst "corpsers" that had been on the show since Fallon and Sanz had been cast members, seeing them honestly laugh and enjoy each other's presence after months of tension was inspiring to even me.

I'll be including a chapter in this book on my take on the Rachel you all know because I think she would have wanted me to. I'm not an author and I realise that I probably have as much of an insight on the person that Rachel truly was as the next person, but this feels like something I have to do. I don't know why Rachel did a lot of the things she did. I can't tell you why she got into politics, why she became a director, or even what she was doing at NYU on March 30th when it exploded leaving nothing of her for the people she's left behind. But I can tell you about the person who's been with me for a very long time and someone that I'd like to think, still has a part of me with her where ever she is.

Noah "Puck" Puckerman April 2057

AN: So what do you think? Something I can use or should it be scrapped? The story can go one or two ways I think: It becomes the book that was written about her life and career, with characters from New Directions and celebrities she's worked with. Or the next chapter starts off with Rachel in the body of her younger self the day of the Glee pilot staring at the sign up sheet for New Directions. Let me know which you prefer, if either. If I go the book route, it'll be mostly about her career. If I go the 'she went back through time route', it'll be about how an adult Rachel deals with McKinley High and New Directions.

AN2: "Corpser" isn't a term as far as I know but "corpsing" is when you break character or laugh at something you're not supposed to.


	2. Here We Go Again

Part 1: I Dreamed A Little Dream

Every night its the same dream.

There they are in Jesse's rental and its been a long day. Her feet hurt and her face feels like putty from smiling so fakely. The rehearsal dinner had been a disaster just like Jesse had predicted but it didn't matter. The days where either of them would cave to popular opinion were long gone so tommorrow they would be getting married just the same. She doesn't love Jesse in that moment (that ship has sailed a while ago now) but she is so very fond and proud of him. They're on the expressway back to Jersey and her hand is running through his buzzcut, when Jesse starts to speak.

"_Rachel, do you...?"_

Then she wakes up sweating and she's 32 in Los Angeles. She wakes up and she's 40 in Paris. She wakes up and she's 53 in her office at 30 Rockerfeller Plaza. Rachel's older and smarter. Sometimes she's hungover and sometimes she's been rolling so hard it hurts to greet the sun. It doesn't matter if she's in the old house in Jersey, the flat in london, or the cabin in Connecticut; if she's waking up, its from some variation of that dream. Once it was a suppressed memory of the jaws of life picking at her trapped legs and there are days she can swear she still feels the consequences from that particular bender.

Rachel hates Jesse for the dream. Its just like him to haunt her when all she wants is to forget someone named Jesse St. James ever existed. Waking up breathless, waking up terrified every night since she was 27 has definitely put a damper on her lifestyle. Every therapist (sworn to secrecy of course) she's had since that day has told her to let it go. Every man she's dated (every woman she's fucked, first in curiousity than just the pure frustration of hoping to feel something) probably wishes she could've let it go. She drinks to let it go and it just won't. No matter what she does, no matter where she goes, she still needs Jesse to finish that sentence.

"_Rachel, do you...?"_

And its this that's driven her, she supposes. All of her life, in all of their encounters, she's _never_ been stupid enough to need Jesse. Want; yeah so much it crippled her for awhile there. Love; quite, even at as young an age as 16 when she thought love meant knowing someone's out to destroy you and giving them the keys to the demolition equipment anyway. Want; the memory of the first time she ever saw him naked stretched out for her is still with her. Hate, lust, disappointment, fear, anger, depression, greed, jealousy, uncertainty; all of these are emotions that have pushed through her in response to some of the hoops he's had made her jump through. But its through death that Jesse ruins her and she's never stopped needing to hear what he was going to say.

Understandably, she's dealt with this the best way she knows how. Thankfully the drugs had never lasted long, either prescribed or illegal and drinking, while a noble and time-honored vice, only worked just enough where she can fall back asleep after the dream knocks her awake. Work's the best and longest lasting cure to date. Sure she still has the dream but its choppy, sketchy and it doesn't hurt. It hurts that she has to exhaust herself just to not feel the hurt.

The other memories she has of Jesse don't hurt, surprisingly. The memory of being 20 and hitchhiking back to Valencia from Big Bear, cheek still stinging from where Jesse had hit her in his coke-induced rage. That fueled with the disbelief that he had lied to her, was still lying, would always lie used to make her heart ache something fierce. There's that visceral rememberance of being 23 in London, reading American tabloids obsessed with Jesse and his many, many women. The shock was always going to be there, the disbelief stuck around every time she cast her mind back to those days. But since the day she was 25 and she realized that Jesse was going to be who he was and she just had to decide if she was going to stick around regardless?

Since she's known the answer was yes, yes, yes?

Those memories don't hurt. They're just patches in the quilt that the two of them have together. Rachel had never been able to walk away from him even when she couldn't bring herself to love him anymore. The distant affection she felt for him those last few years was hidden by what she had thought was a quite charming facade of love. To this day she's not sure what love is but Jesse had became like a co-star to her; someone you wish well because you're in the moment and this person is your spouse/brother/sister and when those cameras came on you had to play it out for the world.

So she's 25 and this is before the quasi-succesful knee surgeries and its before the miscariage and its before she loses Funny Girl. Jesse's in front of her on the steps of 30 Rockerfeller Plaza and they had just finished making an ass out of themselves on Saturday Night Live. He's saying that he'll check into rehab, get his shit dealt with once and for all but that he doesn't think he can do it without her waiting for him. He's saying he loves her and all of the beautiful things that it feels like she's been waiting to hear for almost a decade.

She can't say no because Jesse looks like he's discovering what it feels like to have a heart and its like watching Bambi walk for the first time; something magical and pure and you'd have to be the most basterding bastard that ever bastered to want to snuff that out. He's her first friend it feels like most days and Jesse's always known his limitations when it mattered the most and if he says he can't do it without her than he can't. And she's 25 years old and she's just tired of being alone, wheter its in London or New York or just inside herself.

And so she had sealed her fate. And its not like Jesse meant to die and its not like she doesn't wish he was still around. She'll be 28, boxing up their house and all of Jesse's things wishing he could tell her what to ship to his mother, a woman that won't give Rachel the time of day. At 32, it'll seem like the whole world wants to know if she'll take Lorne's offer and she just wants to know what Jesse would say. He had been in her life for so many years and at no point does she want to erase what he meant to her.

But she hates that he meant this much; so much that her last moment (her worst moment) with him plays over and over like a record in her head. Its like a disease inside of her, clawing at her veins and it upsets her. Rachel can't tell you what would have happened if she had married Jesse; if they could've been something approaching happy with their daughter or if it all would've fallen down eventually. But in the face of Jesse, the whole crazy whirlwind that was him, she had known how to be bulletproof no matter what if only just to keep her sanity. In the face of his death, she has nothing. Every night she wakes up and is so scared and mournful and she feels like nothing all over again.

So here she is.

And there she goes.

Part 2: Once Upon A Time In Ohio

Of course its when she goes through with it that it hits her how futile and silly this all is. Oh if only they could have had a Delorean like that one movie with that guy. It'll come to her after the blinding headache and pulsing guilt went away. She had known merging with her younger self wasn't going to be pleasant for anyone...but it wouldn't be dramatic to say her younger self had screamed like her soul was being ripped apart. The jump was farther back then it should've been but if she was 15 instead of 27 than that just meant she got time to set things right.

She makes the jump at the moment right where she's signing up for Glee and of course she's not quick enough to dodge the slushie that Puck throws at her. But she has a million things to do on her list and kicking Puck's ass is just going to have to wait, unfortunately. Thankfully the slushie's red so it covers the evidence of her nose bleeding. All expected side effects and that includes missing her preferred destination point by over a decade. She could've landed at any point in her life and its a relief she has her legs, completely unbroken and unmarred for the first time in so very, very long.

But that's not important. What is important is that she gets a second chance with Glee club. Each and everyone one of them was important to her...and dear god it was impossible to hold in the rage even long enough to shovel such quality bullshit as that. The mirror in the second floor girl's restroom is never going to be the same again and she thinks her brand new hands on her brand new body might need stitches. No one wants to go through high school again and when the school was McKinley High? She still thanks the lord everyday that the place didn't kill her the first time around.

Hell, Puck and Matt were the only two that she had kept in contact with after everything that had happened at Mike and Tina's funeral. Rachel didn't like to set foot in Ohio **before** that day and quite honestly, maybe it would've been worth it to end up if only five minutes before the crash because maybe this time the three of them could've went gently into the night like a family. The billions of dollars and all that research feels like a waste of time even though she had always known there was a chance that it would end up like this.

But Christ, to be 15 again? At 15 for all of her bombast and talent she had been a creepy little arrogant thing. With a cast like Quinn Fabray and Will Schuester rounding out the whole she-bang, Rachel has to admit that there's a part of her (who's she kidding? 99.7% of her) that's kicking herself for being stuck in this predicament again. It was a miracle that those three years of highschool had ended with them taking the national trophy and not Santana Lopez killing her or vice versa to be honest. She hadn't gone to any of her reunions over the years except for the 40th as a photo-op and that had only been bearable considering half of the people she had been looking to avoid hadn't been present. And the quality of the liquor she had drank over the years had went up so by the time she was in her late 50's she hadn't really played around with the spirits and it had been spent in a welcome haze.

The neuro scan she did (right before she had gotten into the machine that had probably brought down at least an eighth of NYU's campus) has her brain swimming with information that she had had downloaded directly into her brain. Who the hell knows why or how it had lasted through the merge but Peter had said it would and the little bastard had been right. Considered cheating if used on tests and "insincere" to use for speeches, the nuero-scan was what anyone who wanted to remember a hell of a lot of information for a good 24 hours used. Great for books, closing arguments, and movie scripts.

So the only reasonable thing to do is clean up a little, get a dressing from the nurse (and she does need stitches; yay!) and try to remember where her house was. She ditches because of well, 1) yuck McKinley and 2) she just doesn't care. With two degrees from Cal Arts and NYU respectively, the shitty little diploma from this place matters even less if that was at all possible. She doesn't bother changing clothes from the slushie and no one stops her when she leaves. Its a long walk to her fathers' house but it does give her time to organize her thoughts and make something very much like a pro and cons list.

First the pros:

Her legs. While she had learned to live with not being able to dance or well...move like she used to before the accident, she had merely gritted her teeth and tolerated it with a seething hatred that had bubbled down into dull acceptance. Her whole life had changed because she could no longer dance; her career, her self-esteem, her place on Broadway. It was like background noise after you moved into a new house; you got used to it but only because if you didn't you wouldn't be able to live with yourself, with your surroundings. Having the full use of them (no aches when it rained, no cursory painkiller before and after she could even thinking about taking a run on the elliptical) is a beautiful thing.

Instead of dying (which had been something of a possibility, true) she was alive and never had to answer for what was, when you got right down to it, a lot of money she owed a lot of people, including the city of New York.

Low alcohol tolerance. -Amended after first tumbler of rum is downed

And those pesky cons.

Puck was a dick, she's never spoken to Matt before, and fucking McKinley High. That included slushie facials, pre-enlightenment Dave Karofsky, and Sue Sylvester among other things.

The Cheerios. If she didn't shove her foot down at least seven of their throats by Thanksgiving, it'd be a miracle. While there is some concern on whether or not her black belt transfers over into this frame but she's pretty pissed at these state of events and bitches from hell will just piss her off even more.

Quinn Fabray. See above times five.

When you added in that Jesse would not be the Jesse she remembered but some hyper-diva, the fact that until the last day of her old life she had never fathomed how New Directions had gotten anything done let alone won a damn thing when looking back in hindsight, her crippling soft spot for Finn Hudson, and just the idea of being back in 2009? Choices oh choices. It would be an interesting social experiment to see what would happen if she didn't get involved but if she's remembering Mr. Schue's general demeanor and outlook at this point in time oh dear god, that would go badly.

The part of her that's a producer through and through knows that it would be a logistical nightmare to say the least. It was Quinn's jealousy of Rachel's fixation on Finn that had led her to join Glee Club with Santana and Brittany riding shotgun. Most likely it was Puck knowing Quinn was carrying his spawn that had led to him joining and bringing in Matt and Mike. She had no desire to be the whipping girl this time around and she was too used to having creative control to begin to deal with Schue's baby mama antics that would lead to so many wacky things.

The first thing she does once she gets into the house (spare key, fake rock) is get her tape recorder and start getting down the information the scan left. Most of its useless, the whole point of the scan was to encompass enough information that she'd be fine in any time period of her life. Things like lottery numbers and the such will make sure she's not destitute. As of now Rachel Berry gave a fuck less about graduating highschool and in any time at any point a highschool diploma or the lack of one in this case was important. Rachel hasn't sat in a class in just about 30 years and remembering the high-strung high octane extracurriculars that she had for a life only to not even get to go to the one school she really wanted...No; hell no. It was bullshit then and its bullshit now and no way no how is she playing ball this time. So she needed money and afake identification; luckily for her Peter (who wasn't even born yet; wowzers) scanned that right in for her. Almost 50 tears in the future is a great place to have information in from.

As long as she had the money and didn't bullshit with any payments the mob could probably get her anything she wanted. There was data of who would win the superbowl, NBA title, Stanley and Major League baseball cups (go Blackhawks, Saints, Giants, and Lakers) next year and patents for things that haven't been patented yet. A lot of it she needs to see on paper before she can decide what to do with it but it shows Petey had her back to the end and the more she writes down the more she thinks she might be okay. Recording by voice and typing everything she can remember helps calm her down a little.

The next day at school gets her rage right back up again.

It probably doesn't help that she has a bit of a hangover but the fuzziness gets her through her glee audition. She sang On My Own last time but Rachel's somewhat depressed enough as it is so for fun she does a rendition of "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?" It seems to surprise Mr. Schue but its simple enough to make her voice crack and break at the right parts. She can't actually reach the heights Paula Cole can; not do it and sound as good as her anyway so its a bold move. One that doesn't go too badly but she's glad to leave the room regardless. Rachel has somewhere to be after all.

"Mrs. Hill?"

"What is it?"

"Someone's at the front office for you ma'am."

The frosh had overdone it with the ma'am but the effort makes her appreciate the $5 she spent for the distraction. Rachel crosses the hall from where she's hiding and goes into the teacher vacated classroom. Her Big Gulp is upended on Puck's head, the grape staining into his letterman jacket and clinging fetchingly onto that rediculousness he calls a haircut. Some bounces onto Santana Lopez and that just about breaks her heart deep down inside somewhere, give her a minute to cry and/or weep. Her hand snaps in his face so he's looking at her instead on the pile of grape slushie pooling on his clothes.

"New deal. Everytime one of you or your little friends slushie me, I slushie you back. And then we see who runs out of money first." She looks at the stunned faces around her. "As you were children." Then she goes to the auditorium and tries out a dance for the first time. Its like heaven being able to stick it like she hasn't been able to in forever and she gives Coach Tanaka $20 to let her borrow his car during 4th period so she can go cancel her dance classes and get some clothes that don't make her want to hurt someone.

The road less travelled is gonna be her best bet she's starting to think. The idea of redoing her years at McKinley and actually helping them resemble the time she had spent there makes her want to throw up. When she wasn't throwing a fit in Glee Club she had been busy being shat on by people in Glee Club. Honestly if the club doesn't win a single competition so be it; if she can actually do it right this time and that happens to be the trade-off so be it. But she's not spending 3 years getting talked down to and picked on or talking down to people and picking on them. If she has to be an asshole to get those people to back off, Rachel doesn't actually have a problem with that.

Then she's actually among the club and the idea of being their fearless leader again makes her want to crawl into a hole and die. Rachel had forgotten how irritating teenagers could be and how tiring giving a damn is. Its why she likes business; when people's money was on the line shit actually got done. Mr. Schue's actually doing this for the worst reason imaginable; he believes in the power of song. In their heyday at least 3 members of New Directions didn't even sing along with some of the group numbers and they still took Nationals senior year. It was infuriating and improbable and...Tina was still doing that stuttering thing. This time its not the white gloves and not ironic at all just retarded song that drives her to the bleachers. Its the knowledge that she just might be stuck with these people and **that's** her best case scenario that drives her out to the field.

She's pacing up there, thinking rapidly. Even if she could get everything to happen the same, the stuff on the way would make getting Glee started look like it was easy. There was still Mr. Schue's accounting scare to get through and good lord what is she doing? Suddenly being 15 again means being 15 again. But Glee did a lot of things for a lot of people and she can't turn her back on that. Not when she doesn't have anything better to do.

"Rachel..."

She can't even remember the conversation they had the first time around but Rachel puts up a hand to forestall him. "I just needed some air. With the way Artie almost crashed into the piano, I had a flash of 'oh my god what the hell am I doing here?' So this is me mainly just taking a moment to reflect and recall Lily Adler's words."

He looks at her blankly.

She sighs and smooths down her skirt. "The very definition of glee is about opening yourself up to joy apparently. Just trying to feel the joy Schue." She looks off into the distance and thinks of everythig that's bearing down on all of those poor, ignorant kids in the choir room right now and if she can or should head any of it off. In the midst of it, she doesn't notice him looking at her askance for the way she used his nickname when she never has before. "Just trying to feel the joy."

AN: What do you think? I'm thinking each chapter will be a look at Rachel through the eyes of each character with interludes showing you her life in the old timeline.


End file.
